Johannesburg - President Cyril Ramaphosa did not attend the special NEC meeting held at the Nasrec Conference Centre on Friday, where members of the ANC gathered to discuss the Section 89 independent panel report.
Reports indicate that members could not even start to discuss the matter before the meeting was adjourned on Friday.
The report compiled by retired Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo found that Ramaphosa may have violated his oath of office and the Constitution when he concealed the Phala Phala farm robbery in 2020.
The report has seen the ANC battling to find a way of dealing with the findings before the meeting was adjourned due to conflicting personalities within the ANC NEC.
ANC treasurer Paul Mashatile said the president was still in consultation with other stakeholders, which made it impossible for him to attend the meeting on Friday.
It is believed that the members inside the meeting could not agree on any of the issues raised in the meeting and that they were contradicting one another, which resulted in the meeting being adjourned for a meeting of the NWC before Parliament debates the matter on Tuesday. Another NEC meeting will then be called to deliberate on these matters.
“The president is still consulting, which is why he did not make it to this meeting,” Mashatile told members of the media following the adjournment of the meeting in Nasrec.
However, that has not stopped member of the ANC Carl Niehaus, who staged yet another one-man picket outside the Nasrec Conference Centre ahead of the ANC special meeting set to discuss the Section 89 inquiry report. Niehaus told “The Star” that he has been informed by some of his sources inside the ANC that Ramaphosa has been advised to stay put and not step down.
He said Ramaphosa was ready to step down last night, but some of his supporters within the Cabinet told him not to step down.
Niehaus was speaking outside the conference venue as members of the ANC in their motorcades continued to make their way inside Nasrec.
“I get the impression that yesterday there was a chance that the president could resign. But some of those desperados around the president want to hold on to their ministerial jobs and have convinced him that he should stay. I don’t know if the president will stay with that desperate call they made on him. It would seem that these people care more about their presidential positions, about the blue lights and the big salary cheques, and not about the people of South Africa,” he said.
Another member of the ANC, Thabo Mokholela, joined the MKMVA spokesperson and added his voice to the calls for Ramaphosa to step aside, adding that if he loved the citizens of this country, he would do the honourable thing.
“I’m here to put forward a message to the executive committee to allow Ramaphosa to step down as party president and president of the country.
“This is because there is a case he needs to answer to, and everybody is equal before the law, and if he loves the people of this county, he must step down and stay in Phala Phala. We are also warning NEC members that if they want to come back, they must make the right decision, not for their positions but for the people of this country,” he said.
Niehaus, who has been vocal about the need for Ramaphosa to resign, said should Ramaphosa stay put in his position, he would call for him to not set his foot inside Nasrec come the 55th ANC national conference on December 16.
“Ramaphosa should not even set his foot here. He is a persona non grata. He should not be allowed any longer to be the president of the ANC, and he certainly should not be allowed to be a candidate for the presidency at the conference,” he said.
Niehaus stated that he will stage another one-man picket at the conference when it begins on December 16.
The Star